My Dad Was Old Enough To Be My Grandfather. It Shaped Me In Ways I Didn’t Expect.

"His inevitable extinction was always on the horizon, and it scared me."

The first time a kid in my kindergarten class asked, “Is that your grandfather?” when my dad dropped me off at school, embarrassment consumed me.

My dad didn’t look like the other dads; what little hair he had was silvering, and he had deep wrinkles that sank into his face.

I remember the stubborn certainty of being six years old and wanting to blend in.

“I don’t want you to walk me into school anymore,” I told my dad.

I didn’t yet have the language for difference. I only understood sameness, who matched and who didn’t. I just wanted to fit in.

“Please? I’ll walk you to your classroom door quietly,” he asked,

But I was firm, saying: “No. Just wait here. I can go by myself.”

He slid my Little Mermaid backpack onto my tiny shoulders. Just as I reached the front gate, I turned around to see his worn Gucci loafers, thick-rimmed reading glasses and pomaded hair. He blew a kiss in my direction, and I waved to show I’d made it safely – eager to hurry him along.

I’m the only product of my dad’s second marriage (and his second divorce). With two half-siblings 20 years older than me, I grew up as an only child. I vacillated between worshipping him as the creator of all fun (he’d play Talking Heads while I jumped on the bed) to treating him as a humiliating, old appendage. His inevitable extinction was always on the horizon, and it scared me.

Today, walking up the brick staircase of my childhood home, I reach the front door, painted green now instead of red. To my right, under the mail slot, is an opaque garbage bag. I can make out a heap of Depends and baby wipes inside.

As footsteps approached the front door, I brushed the small pearls of sweat gathering at the nape of my neck. Returning home always unsettles me.

“Hi, come on in. He’s just taking a nap,” his caregiver smiles at........

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